Raymond Longford

Though named John, he was always called Ray in the family, and started in the theatre as actor Raymond Hollis Longford, and so continued in cinema, where he began and ended as an actor. He married in 1900, but became associated with Lottie Lyell in about 1910, and they remained a couple until her premature death from tuberculosis in 1925.

Born John Walter Longford on 23 September 1878 in Hawthorn, Victoria, the son of a prison warder, he later dropped his father's names of John Walter and adopted the names Raymond Hollis (after his mother's maiden name of Hollis). He had an active early life at sea and in the Boer War before becoming an actor with various touring stage companies in Australia and New Zealand. He acted in three films produced by Spencer early in 1911, and under Spencer's sponsorship he quickly became the most adventurous and capable of Australian film directors.
When Spencer's operations were absorbed into Australasian Films, Longford joined the Fraser film company as supervisor of its productions, and in 1914 directed The Silence Of Dean Maitland, which became one of his biggest commercial successes. When the Frasers cancelled most of their production program, allegedly because of pressure from Australasian, Longford spent the rest of his film career buffeted from company to company, growing progressively paranoid about the influence of the combine. Pike & Cooper: 18.